TERMINALLY ILL WOMAN ENDS LIFE WITH MEDICAL ASSISTANCE, ISSUES DEATHBED PLEA FOR CHANGE TO LAW
Nov 01, 2018
By Bob Komsic
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A 57-year-old Halifax woman, who pleaded with politicians from her deathbed to change the medical-assisted dying law, has passed away.
Diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer two years ago, Audrey Parker decided to end her suffering by turning to Canada’s assisted dying law and was given lethal injections.
(Chris Donovan/Globe and Mail)
In a Facebook statement earlier today she said while the law allowed her to end her suffering, it had also forced her to choose to die sooner than she would have liked.
”I wanted to make it to Christmas and New Year’s Eve … my favourite time of the year but I lost that opportunity because of a poorly thought out federal law,” Parker wrote.
The law states anyone approved for a medically-assisted death must be conscious and mentally sound to give their final consent.
”Had late stage consent been abolished, I simply would have taken my life one day at a time,” added Parker.
The advocacy group ‘Dying with Dignity Canada’ is submitting a bill next week, dubbed Audrey’s Law, that will ask for the removal of that criteria.
Canada’s health minister said if she could change the law she would and agrees there are areas of the law that ”we need to work on.”
A team of experts has been reviewing the issue raised by Parker and will deliver a report next month.